What’s The Big Idea? — Changes To Major League Baseball

Welcome to ‘What’s The Big Idea?’ week here at TPOP.  We’re going to do an article each day from our writers about what they’d like to see changed in Baseball, Hockey, Football, and Pittsburgh.  First up is baseball:

Steve DiMiceli — Bring On The RoboUmps

Call hurts #Pirates Strike 1 should be ball 4 Bot 8 Duke vs Walker 0% call same 6.6in from edge pic.twitter.com/debqbQvMUh

— Pirates Strike Zone (@PiratesUmp) June 17, 2015

Those who follow me on Twitter may have guessed I’d use the Pitch/FX data already available to double check the home plate umps’ strike zone. To be clear, I think they have an extremely difficult job, maybe the most difficult in all of sports officiating. Not only do they have to watch an object whiz through an imaginary square that changes based on the size of the batter, they need to be semi-conscious of deflections that suddenly shift the trajectory of the object towards their throat.

Guys are going to get the call wrong sometimes, but they don’t need to stay wrong. We have the technology to get it right. While I don’t want to see the laser grid strike zone replacing the person behind home plate entirely, MLB could easily put in place a system of challenges much like tennis where the computer quickly places the ball at the exact millisecond the call needed to be made. Give each manager five challenges throughout the course of the game and put the grid on the big screen allowing the crew chief to decide whether the call should stand or change. It would take seconds and the game could resume.

Umps’ egos have taken a hit with replay, but it has always been strongest behind the plate. It’s unreasonable to expect the human element to get it right all of the time, but one bad call can dramatically alter the course of an at-bat or a game. There is no reason to continue to allow it to happen.

Kevin Creagh — Less Regular Season Games, More Wild Card Games

The baseball season is 162 games long, but it’s not always been that way.  Back in 1961, the season was 154 games long until it expanded to the current 162 in 1962.  With scheduled off days and the lack of scheduled day/night doubleheaders, due to the loss of gate revenue to teams by this practice, the regular season routinely stretches from the beginning of April to the start of October.  Depending on how the days of the week fall, it came drift in late March and the first week of October.

Baseball is just entirely too long.  Kids are in one grade at the start of the season and come back in a whole new grade.  By cutting the season back to the previous 154, you can save a minimum of 8 calendar days, but more likely 10 days.  This may help to minimize the number of terrible weather days at the start (snow in Colorado) and end of season (bitter cold on East Coast in World Series).

The introduction of the one-game Wild Card game was a great move by MLB, but it makes the game a virtual coin flip.  It distills the accomplishments of a grinding season for a successful team down to that single game.  If your team has one off night, six months are ruined.

By making the Wild Card series three games, you at least give the teams a chance to minimize performance variance.  It also gives each team’s fans at least one game to see their team in the playoffs.